JACKSON, Tenn. — Dec. 15, 2018 — 51社区 graduated more than 250 students at its commencement services Saturday, including Shu Aoki, a Doctor of Education student from Japan who traveled to the Union campus for the first time to receive his diploma.
Aoki took all of his classes online, communicating with professors and classmates through email and online chats. Even though he never met them face to face, Aoki said he formed relationships with his professors. He said that鈥檚 something he wants to emulate in the school he runs in Japan.
鈥淭he professors taught me what transformational teaching is like,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hat helps me a lot because I really want to make a class that is not just information teaching, but includes interaction with teachers and students.鈥
Chad Wilson, president of McKenzie Banking Company and Foundation Bank and chair of the 51社区 Board of Trustees, gave the commencement address. He said most of the graduates are heading out into the workplace, and they should see their work in light of the gospel.
鈥淪ome will be disillusioned by an imperfect workplace filled with imperfect people,鈥 Wilson said. 鈥淭he gospel is big enough to renew you and to use you as an agent of renewal in the particular workplace in which you find yourself.鈥
Wilson said most people either view work as a necessary evil or something that defines them, but the biblical picture of work is much different.
鈥淚 want you to see your work as more than you think it is, but I also want you to not see work as more than it is,鈥 he said. 鈥淲ork is both a burden and a blessing.鈥
Wilson said work was part of God鈥檚 original perfect creation. God worked before sin entered the world. His work was good, but sin has corrupted work and made it imperfect and burdensome.
鈥淎s fallen creatures, work exposes our limitations in ways that few things do,鈥 Wilson said. 鈥淚f work is your life, you will live in perpetual disappointment.鈥
He said Jesus came into the world to renew and redeem all things corrupted by sin, and work is part of that. Christians transformed by the gospel should be skillful and excellent in their work and generous with their rewards.
鈥淭he gospel is the ground for your work,鈥 Wilson said. 鈥淎nd all your work is to be informed and enabled by it.鈥
Union鈥檚 undergraduate commencement service took place at 10 a.m., followed by a graduate commencement service at 1:30 p.m. Both services took place at West Jackson Baptist Church in Jackson.